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Incorrect, I was completely aware there was a rule regarding ball inflation, and if I was (and I'm not the biggest fan of professional football), I'm sure a not-so-insignificant number of others were as well. There's no reason to use such hyperbole.

Well you are the resident forum expert so that's to be expected but if you asked me before all this I would have just assumed a rule existed with regard to the inflation of a football. Now everyone knows damn near everything there is to know about ball inflation, deflation, and the complicated physics that are involved with change of temperature. Nobody gave two shits about this before, and I guarantee you a game this coming season will be delayed due to some 'ball inspection' routine that allows for a few more commercials to be thrown in.

Why shouldn't Goodell oversee this? Tom Brady is not going to be arrested if found "guilty." This is not a legal issue. This is an NFL issue. Goodell is the commissioner of the NFL, it should be up to him what happens. If Tom Brady doesn't like it, he can join Michael Sam in the CFL.

Well you are the resident forum expert so that's to be expected but if you asked me before all this I would have just assumed a rule existed with regard to the inflation of a football. Now everyone knows damn near everything there is to know about ball inflation, deflation, and the complicated physics that are involved with change of temperature. Nobody gave two shits about this before, and I guarantee you a game this coming season will be delayed due to some 'ball inspection' routine that allows for a few more commercials to be thrown in.

Hey, don't PMS on me just because your hero has been publically torn down and disgraced. Geez. It's not as if he didn't do this to himself.

"I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character." - M.L.King Jr

But when we analyzed the data provided in the Wells report, we found that the Patriots balls declined by about the expected amount, while the Colts balls declined by less. In fact, the pressure of the Colts balls was statistically significantly higher than expected. Contrary to the report, the significant difference between the changes in pressure of the two teams’ balls was not because the pressure of the Patriots balls was too low, but because that of the Colts balls was too high.

The Wells 'investigation' started off on the grounds the Patriots were already guilty, that's clear as day based on the contents of the report. What was omitted and included in the report rested solely on what could be used to prove guilt.

All the science in the report brings forth exactly zero proof of guilt, none, nada, zip. Don't forget the NFL was tipped off BEFORE the game and STILL couldn't "catch them in the act." So basically the Patriots were fined a mil, lost two draft picks and their HOF QB for 4 games over a couple of texts that could possibly mean some dink was in charge of making sure Brady's balls were as close to 12.5 as possible by any means necessary.

As I said before, this is exactly the kind of "gotcha" BS that happened to the Saints after bountygate, which by the way, were the second to last team in opposing player injuries that year. Once the public is given just enough information phrased to imply guilt then the wheels of Goodell's punishment train cannot be stopped.

Brady will not stand for a single game missed, and it also stands to reason that if the Well's Report is factually too weak to suppose Brady's guilt then how in the hell do the fine and draft picks stand? By all accounts Brady is the only one with any guilt in this situation so where in hell does this fine for the team come from?

Meanwhile, ProFootballTalk reports that a "small group of influential owners" are pushing Goodell to uphold the suspension, so it's nice to see some lobbying of the commissioner by rival teams who didn't participate in the disciplinary process.

I wonder which owners would have a vested interest in Brady missing 1/4 of the season?

BOSTON (CBS) — NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has ruled on Tom Brady’s appeal, deciding to uphold his four-game suspension for his role in the DeflateGate scandal.
The league cited Brady’s unwillingness to cooperate with Ted Wells’ investigation, and the fact the quarterback ordered his cell phone destroyed during the investigation as the reason why they upheld the four-game ban.
It was reported earlier this month that the NFLPA will fight in federal court any suspension given to Brady, so now we await to hear if Brady wants to go that route.

It's shady, but the NFL had no right to request it in the first place so don't expect that to be a sticking point in court.

Ultimately it was the right decision for Goodell to uphold his own...err I mean Troy Vincent's punishment. This way he can "stay tough" in the eyes of the other 31 teams and just shrug his shoulders and say "I tried" after the courts have their way with this debacle.

Another interesting wrinkle from those 20+ pages is how Brady printed out the rules surrounding ball inflation and had his guys give it to the refs after he complained about them being 16+ PSI in the Jets game. The cell phone thing is shady, but you're telling me a man who has been circumventing an obscure rule for years sends his guys to the freaking refs to remind them of the exact rule he intends to break ? What the hell is the point of that?

"He (Brady) told the Patriots' equipment staff that he wanted the footballs inflated at the lowest permissible level; he reviewed a highlighted copy of the provision of the Playing Rules that addressed inflation of footballs; and he instructed the equipment staff to present a copy of the rule to the game officials. On the day of the AFC Championship Game, Mr. McNally told referee Walt Anderson that Mr. Brady wanted the balls inflated to a pressure of 12.5psi. He told the investigators that "Tom...always has me pass a message to the Officials that he likes the balls at the minimum permissible PSI of 12.5...I know this is what Tom wants, and I have been personally told by him of the ball weight preference."

The phrasing implies Tom had it burned immediately after meeting with Wells the first time, which is neither specific nor corroborated by any facts. Also, The NFL has known that fact for a while now, why stall for weeks on a decision when the course was clear anyways, why not "leak" the cell phone fact months ago? Why did Wells say that Tom cooperated fully and gave over an "unprecedented amount" of his private information? Wells already had messages from the dink's phones with Brady, sooo what did they expect to gain by having more phone records? They got "the deflator" (once) they got some "pissed at Brady" messages and they have some "post-deflategate" check ins between Brady and the dinks. If Brady texted those DBs and said "Hey guys just a reminder that I like my balls at exactly .4PSI lower than normal muhuahahaha" then it would be on those dumbasses' phones, right?

He says he burns phones after 6 months, which hilariously fits the timeframe of that particular phone, who knows if that's total BS, it sure sounds like it. But that's all deflategate is, "sounds like it." We've all forgotten about the NFLs horrendous job of tackling (heh) actual problems and crucified Brady for the stupidest ****ing thing of all time.

He willfully destroyed his phone and along with it all the sympathy he had (outside of Boston). Good job. Think congress is going to be any more sympathetic? They should ban him for the whole season, just for being a dumbass.

"I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character." - M.L.King Jr

“I did nothing wrong,” Tom Brady wrote on Wednesday in a message to the few fans who still believe him and his Deflategate whoppers.

No, Tom, you did everything wrong.

And that’s why, for the betterment of his image, legacy and 2015 season, Brady, the embattled New England Patriots quarterback, needs to stop fighting his Deflategate suspension today. That would involve taking his medicine in the form of a four-game suspension and ending the absurdity of this so-called scandal before he’s made to look even worse and more dishonest than he already does. Brady has been so wrong about nearly all things involving Deflategate, so he won’t take any of that advice because he’s so all-consumed by an out-of-control ego that somehow still has him convinced he can win.

He can’t. It’s done. When a loss happens on the football field, Brady doesn’t stand around, hoping to get more time on the clock. He doesn’t appeal to the league on technicalities. He swallows hard and looks ahead to the next fight. So why wouldn’t he do the same Deflategate?

What Brady never realized was that Deflategate was never about footballs. In the public’s mind, this was NFL star versus NFL front office, a battle the former wins almost every time. Roger Goodell’s favorability rating is just around Donald Trump’s and everyone, from fans to the press, look for every opportunity to pile onto the anti-Goodell bandwagon. That’s what they were doing for the majority of Deflategate, right up until the story about Brady destroying his cell phone was made public.

The tide shifted immediately. Brady was no longer the Golden Boy who can do no wrong, he was the guy who cheated, then blew it all with a moronic attempt to take the easy way out. He can stare down defenses and 280-pound tackles, but when it came to facing a few guys in suits, Brady panicked like a rookie in his first training camp.

It didn’t have to be this way. If he’d originally accepted the suspension and basically pleaded no contest — he could have said he talked to the equipment managers, because that’s what quarterbacks do, and told them he likes the ball with as little deflation as required by rule — he’d be a hero, selflessly accepting the Draconian whims of Roger Goodell. This would have allowed him to maintain deniability and enjoy the support of the masses who prefer handsome football stars to heavy-handed commissioners and would have turned Deflategate into a distant memory by October. By losing, Tom Brady would actually win.

But he kept fighting. He keeps fighting. His lame, meandering, 400-word Facebook defense comes off as cowardly and dishonest. (Seriously, Facebook?) He’s planning on going to court, apparently. Brady is like a politician vowing to press forward despite finishing last in every presidential primary or a general continuing to fight after his soldiers have waved the white flag. Tom Brady doesn’t realize the battle is already lost and can’t be won.

What’s the best case scenario now? That Brady goes to court, gets a sympathetic Minnesota judge, receives an injunction to play and, six months down the road, gets his suspension overturned on some as-of-yet unseen technicality? How does that help him in the eyes of the public? How does that clear his name? Brady’s credibility was destroyed along with that cell phone. Some union-loving federal judge can’t undo that and neither can Brady. The genie can’t be stuffed back into the lamp.

There’s been a familiar refrain over the past six months that Tom Brady is too smart to get involved in deflating footballs or lie to Ted Wells or destroy evidence, but he wasn’t. He also wasn’t bright enough to see Deflategate for what it really was: A battle fought in public, not in conference rooms at the NFL offices on Park Ave. No one would have cared if Brady took the four games. He would have practically been martyred for it. But he couldn’t leave it alone and now the Golden Boy’s reputation is sullied, almost beyond repair.

He willfully destroyed his phone and along with it all the sympathy he had (outside of Boston). Good job. Think congress is going to be any more sympathetic? They should ban him for the whole season, just for being a dumbass.

Hahahah, now that's a spicy hot take! Banned for the season for maybe deflating footballs that science says were never intentionally deflated. With critical thinking skills like that you'd fit right in at ESPN. Also....Congress? Seriously?

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants

obstruction of justice is, and if congress finds that's what he's done, he could end up in a lot worse shape than a 4 game suspension.

Obstruction of justice? Uhhh I don't think you've been paying attention, Ted Wells was an independent investigator, and per the CBA the NFL has no power to acquire player's personal property in the first place. The only time Brady was under oath was during the appeal hearing....in which the NFL says he revealed he had destroyed his phone, after handing over an "unprecedented" amount of digital information and "cooperating fully" (says that right in the Wells report). He handed over a spreadsheet of the send/receive info of over 10k texts and it showed NOTHING SUSPICIOUS. Also, Congress again? Do you understand how player's union grievances work or are you just making it up as you post?

Edit: If we're talking obstruction of justice that's what Ray Lewis was actually convicted of in a murder trial, and he has a bronze statue of himself in Baltimore and a cushy job at ESPN.

Editx2 Drew nails it again.

Yes, the Brady takes have come in, and they are every bit as ****ing insane as I could hope for. I just want to boil them in a spoon and suck ’em up with a syringe and shoot them right into my eyeball. We got Plaschke. We got Florio. We got Doyel. We got a ****ing Golden Corral of takes, and we’re breaking them down this week in the Deadcast. THE TAKES ARE BACK. MORON SEASON IS IN FULL BLOOM.

I'm sure Kessler, who has been backhanding the league for years now, would have told Brady to throw in the towel right after the Wells Report dropped. Yet here we are.

The cell phone thing changes nothing, it is yet again another formulaic and perfectly timed information release from the NFL offices and has yet to be verified by anyone.

Just imagine if the Mortensen tweet read this "11 of 12 Pats balls found to be .4 PSI low on average, 3 of 4 Colts balls tested also low, NFL investigation will surround inadequate understanding of ball pressure and handling protocols"

I don't expect you to understand that it isn't about ball deflation now, and hasn't been for a long while. Even the Boston Globe gets it, but I doubt you ever will. This isn't just about 4 games anymore, he's going to sit those out, whether you like it or not. It's now about his legacy and how much more he's going to tarnish it before this is all said and done. I'm betting this is all going to become more entertaining before it's all said and done.

and Ray Lewis? Really? "Brady's not as bad as Ray Lewis!" (and it's not the first time you've compared them in this thread). What a benchmark, can it possibly be set any lower?

"I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character." - M.L.King Jr

Feb 28th, Wells told the Brady camp that the device was not needed, and he would not ask for it. Wells just needed documents concerning the contents, and that would be adequate.

Mar 6th, Brady replaces, destroys, gets a new phone, knowing that his old one has basically been cleared by the investigatory team, and is not needed.

June 18th, Brady mentions pre appeal that the contents of the unneeded phone will not be available via that device, due to it's replacement and destruction, but can be tracked down on the receiving devices, and even presents a list of who would own those devices to the NFL. The NFL decides this is too much work, and does not follow up.

July 28th, Goodell says that the destroyed phone that Wells said he didn't need is direct evidence of Brady's guilt, and makes basically anything Brady said during the appeal, equatable to the value of dried up dog shit.

I don't expect you to understand that it isn't about ball deflation now, and hasn't been for a long while. Even the Boston Globe gets it, but I doubt you ever will. This isn't just about 4 games anymore, he's going to sit those out, whether you like it or not. It's now about his legacy and how much more he's going to tarnish it before this is all said and done. I'm betting this is all going to become more entertaining before it's all said and done.

and Ray Lewis? Really? "Brady's not as bad as Ray Lewis!" (and it's not the first time you've compared them in this thread). What a benchmark, can it possibly be set any lower?

Hahaha the Boston Globe says he's guilty! Oh man, the journalistic gold standard, the same place that published the story that the Pats taped the Rams walkthroughs and had to completely go back on it once it was found out to be a total fabrication.

Also an amazing deflection on pretty much everything I've posted on this page, even for you it was brilliant.

Edit: No wait, I'm not done.

Not about ball deflation? Hasn't been for a while? This story ceases to exist without ball deflation, and that one statement, shared by many is the single greatest example of the complete and utter farce this has become.

You also state I am "comparing TB to Lewis" which is another cleverly phrased statement to disregard all of my posts about this subject. It's not "Brady isn't as bad as Ray Lewis" it's "Ray Lewis should be in jail for what he did and Tom Brady is a villain for an unproven act investigated by corrupt incompetent ****s"

Course none of you will read this, since you all made up your mind the second that BS Mortensen report came out. Emphasis mine.

Neither Wells nor Goodell ever notified Brady that not producing his phone would mean discipline for non-cooperation. On Wednesday, the NFL Players Association filed a 54-page lawsuit on Brady’s behalf making that point. The issue Brady and his team thought they were addressing in his Wells interview and appeal was the inflation of game balls. According to Dowd, this compromises the whole matter: Goodell moved the finish line.

“The NFL commissioner has denied Tom Brady the fundamental right to a notice of charge and the right to defend against it,” Dowd says.

There is another pattern here — a very unseemly pattern of unethical behavior by the league office under Goodell’s leadership. First, there is always a leak from the league that commands a big headline and gins up public indignation. Next comes a disciplinary hammer from Goodell that makes him look like a hero-protector. But when the excitement dies down and actual facts emerge, it all turns out to be a souped-up overreach.

Funny how Goodell and the NFL head offices are incompetent boobs to everyone for years, but now they've definitely "got this one right" in the eyes of 31 fanbases by nailing TB for an alleged ball violation.

That's Pash, the same lawyer who edited the "independent" Wells report before it was released. The more actual facts come out the more of a slam dunk this is for the NFLPA. There was no fairness in the entire process, and if it is revealed Kensil maliciously falsified info to frame the Patriots in the court of public opinion all of a sudden we have grounds for a defamation suit, for the organization as well as Brady.

In his testimony, Wells cited the attorney-client privilege between himself and the NFL in responding to questions posed by Kessler. He also admitted that NFL attorneys, including Lorin Reisner who cross-examined Brady in Brady’s appeal, assisted in the preparation of the report.

That's probably the shadiest part so far.

On the other side, the claims of Wells being ok without Brady's phone are also bunk.

"Question: “So prior to this game, okay, had you ever heard of the Ideal Gas Law?”

Vincent: “No sir.”

Question: “Do you know if anyone in the NFL Game-Day Operations had ever discussed the impact of the Ideal Gas Law in testing footballs?”

Vincent: “Not with me.”

Question: “You had never heard to that?”

Vincent: “Never.”

Here's a brief overview of the NFLs investigative 'process' over the past 6 freaking months.

The Investigation:

The Colts say that Pats don't play on the level, probably has nothing to do with the years and years of embarrassing post-season losses. Instead of making sure the AFCCG game will be played on the level let's wait until halftime to check the balls, then let's make up a story about D'qwell Jackson noticing the ball was soft even though he himself will almost certainly say otherwise. Secondly, let's tell the media and the Pats that the balls were 2 psi low and even throw in one at 10.1 just for kicks to see them try and explain false information. Let's start a totally biased investigation on the grounds of false information and have Goodell oversee everything through his legal proxy. Let's have our attorneys comb through the report first before releasing the report, wouldn't want to get any egg on our faces!

The Punishment/Appeal:

TB totally deflated balls, just look at those couple of texts! I mean, the balls definitely naturally deflated and those texts are garbage but TB totally didn't give us his phone so he's guilty. I mean, we never actually wanted the phone itself and TB gave us a whole heap of texts/emails about all sorts of random stuff, but he's totally guilty because he hasn't come clean yet! I mean, he says under oath he's not guilty, and we have no proof, and our own 600K dollar science firm tripped over itself, and TB has an exemplary 15-year career in the NFL....but he's totally guilty because he DESTROYED HIS PHONE.

The Aftermath:

I mean, we didn't want the phone anyways, and TB cooperated fully, and the science is shit, and the texts are meaningless, and we have proven that we are absolute liars and falsified information MULTIPLE TIMES........but TB is guilty and should just admit it.

Also, F**K ESPN with a pineapple for completely vanishing once actual information starting coming out. They dug up every person who's ever lost a meaningful game to the Pats over the last 20 years for their 'expert analysis' on TBs guilt yet they are nowhere to be found when the truth emerges.

The only people who still think TB is guilty and the NFL "got this one right" have incredibly short attention spans.

Edit: Luckily ESPN isn't the only sports news out there, and the narrative is changing rapidly.

I mean more the butting of heads and the likely 24/7 coverage on grantland, but especially the podcasts. Assuming they could make it past the censors. By the time he's with HBO, this story will be too cold for a passionate take.

1. I think the more I read about Deflategate, the less faith I have in the NFL. I’m not saying Tom Brady and the Patriots are totally innocent, but no sensible person would describe the league’s proof as being anything close to “beyond a reasonable doubt.” And just because the CBA doesn’t say it has to be doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be. I’m not big on calling for someone’s firing, but Roger Goodell went after the sport’s grandest star (maybe ever) and this decade’s most accomplished franchise. In doing so, he created a gargantuan distraction for both during Super Bowl week. Then he allowed the misinformation from that distraction to percolate for many months, damaging the brand of all parties involved (including, indirectly, the league’s). This is the antithesis of “protecting The Shield.” Barring a turn of events in this Deflategate saga—and with the way things have gone, there very well could be another turn of events—Goodell should lose his job.

Did Peter King, the ultimate Goodell sycophant, just come out and say Roger should be fired? Haha, this is better than even my wildest fevered dreams.

The most generous version of what happened here would involve King getting caught up in a game of telephone, with some lower-level NFL minion's distorted version of what happened in the meeting between the Rices and league and team brass ending up in King's column. This would show King as being willing to run a key detail related by some random flunky without checking it in any way with the principals, who aren't exactly strangers to King. It would paint him as a complete incompetent, and a moron.

It's much more likely, of course, that someone who was in the room—one of the three NFL officials or two Baltimore Ravens officials King places there—lied to him. What he published, after all, wasn't an incorrect version of what actually happened, but something that never happened at all. And it had a very clear beneficiary, allowing Roger Goodell to be seen not as issuing a punishment that showed the NFL doesn't care about domestic violence, but as showing deference to the wishes of a victim.

King, in this version of events, was used as the instrument of a smear campaign, almost certainly by either the league's commissioner, its general counsel, or its senior vice president in charge of labor policy. That's a big goddamn story! A serious reporter, you'd think, would want to expose the powerful people who used his column against Janay Rice. Even allowing a more generous interpretation, you'd think anyone with any curiosity at all would want to know how exactly Janay Rice telling NFL higher-ups she just wanted it all to be over morphed into her pleading for mercy on her husband's behalf.

You don't get to be Peter King by being serious or even curious, though; you get there by doing your job.

He didn't remain silent, he acted as a pawn to paint Goodell in a positive light, hence ball-tonguing.

Nice deflection again, nothing to say about the current scandal anymore? I guess 5 pages of baseless bullshit was your limit. That's cool, we can get back to talking about football soon since pre-season is nearly upon us and leave this whole ridiculous clusterf**k behind us.

He didn't remain silent, he acted as a pawn to paint Goodell in a positive light, hence ball-tonguing.

Nice deflection again, nothing to say about the current scandal anymore? I guess 5 pages of baseless bullshit was your limit. That's cool, we can get back to talking about football soon since pre-season is nearly upon us and leave this whole ridiculous clusterf**k behind us.

WTF? Their conclusion is that someone lied to him (his silence was after the fact, he didn't promote anything), it says it right in the article. How do you fabricate what you said from what you just quoted?

I've been enjoying the hell out of it all; TB's a slimy POS (as are the Pats), the league is being devious (as usual), and everyone's pissed at both parties. It's hilarious.

"I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character." - M.L.King Jr